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Articles 1 - 13 of 13
Full-Text Articles in Law
Tax Benefits, Higher Education And Race: A Gift Tax Proposal For Direct Tuition Payments, Bridget J. Crawford, Wendy C. Gerzog
Tax Benefits, Higher Education And Race: A Gift Tax Proposal For Direct Tuition Payments, Bridget J. Crawford, Wendy C. Gerzog
Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications
This Article combines three topics--taxes, higher education, and race--to evaluate the tax system's role in exacerbating racial inequalities. Part II frames the discussion with a brief overview of the economics of higher education: how much it costs, how much debt the average student incurs to afford it, and how that debt burden varies by race. Part III describes the major income and wealth transfer tax benefits for higher education, including I.R.C. § 2503(e)'s exclusion of direct tuition payments from gift tax. Part IV demonstrates how this gift tax exclusion disproportionately benefits white families already more likely to avail themselves …
Reforming Property Law To Address Devastating Land Loss, Thomas W. Mitchell
Reforming Property Law To Address Devastating Land Loss, Thomas W. Mitchell
Faculty Scholarship
Tenancy-in-common ownership represents the most widespread form of common ownership of real property in the United States. Such ownership under the default rules also represents the most unstable ownership of real property in this country. Thousands of tenancy-in-common property owners, including members of many poor and minority families, have lost their commonly-owned property due to court-ordered, forced partition sales as well as much of their real estate wealth associated with such ownership as a result of such sales. Though some scholars and the media have highlighted how thousands of African-Americans have lost an untold amount of property and substantial real …
Evidence-Based Sentencing And The Scientific Rationalization Of Discrimination, Sonja B. Starr
Evidence-Based Sentencing And The Scientific Rationalization Of Discrimination, Sonja B. Starr
Articles
This Article critiques, on legal and empirical grounds, the growing trend of basing criminal sentences on actuarial recidivism risk prediction instruments that include demographic and socioeconomic variables. I argue that this practice violates the Equal Protection Clause and is bad policy: an explicit embrace of otherwise- condemned discrimination, sanitized by scientific language. To demonstrate that this practice raises serious constitutional concerns, I comprehensively review the relevant case law, much of which has been ignored by existing literature. To demonstrate that the policy is not justified by countervailing state interests, I review the empirical evidence underlying the instruments. I show that …
Reimagining Merit As Achievement, Aaron N. Taylor
Reimagining Merit As Achievement, Aaron N. Taylor
All Faculty Scholarship
Higher education plays a central role in the apportionment of opportunities within the American meritocracy. Unfortunately, narrow conceptions of merit limit the extent to which higher education broadens racial and socioeconomic opportunity. This article proposes an admissions framework that transcends these limited notions of merit. This “Achievement Framework” would reward applicants from disadvantaged backgrounds who have achieved beyond what could have reasonably been expected. Neither race nor ethnicity is considered as part of the framework; however, its nuanced and contextual structure would ensure that racial and ethnic diversity is encouraged in ways that traditional class-conscious preferences do not. The overarching …
Capitalism And The Tax System: A Search For Social Justice, Beverly I. Moran
Capitalism And The Tax System: A Search For Social Justice, Beverly I. Moran
Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications
America is a country founded on ideas. The Enlightenment was one set of ideas that attended our birth and one Enlightenment belief as strong today as during the revolution is our faith in capitalism and the protection of private property. Yet, the United States tax system manages to violate fundamental capitalist principles as outlined in the extensive writings of Adam Smith - the father of capitalism. Comparing Smith's vision to the current United States tax system reveals many important inconsistencies, particularly the current penchant for simultaneously taxing wages while exempting (or delaying) taxes on wealth and wealth appreciation. The article …
Race And Wealth Disparity: The Role Of Law And The Legal System, Beverly I. Moran, Stephanie M. Wildman
Race And Wealth Disparity: The Role Of Law And The Legal System, Beverly I. Moran, Stephanie M. Wildman
Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications
Many believe that the legal system has achieved racial neutrality because statutes and regulations do not mention race. They do not view law and the legal system as one way that American society polices race and wealth disparities. Because American law seems removed from race and wealth concerns, legal workers see no place for such considerations in their education or practice.
Although the legal system has aspired to neutrality and equality, racialized wealth inequality has resulted and continues. This article considers the aspiration and shows how equality and neutrality can veil existing wealth inequality. Using examples from judicial decisionmaking and …
Constructing Reality: Social Science And Race Cases, Beverly I. Moran
Constructing Reality: Social Science And Race Cases, Beverly I. Moran
Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications
Dred Scott v. Sanford, Plessy v. Ferguson, Brown v. Board of Education and Grutter v. Bollinger all demonstrate that law alone is not enough to make social change. Instead, lawyers interested in social change must understand the nature of the societies that they attempt to persuade and the language that leads judges to change their ways of thinking. In the early 21st century, the language of persuasion is often the language of social science.
Homogenized Law: Can The United States Learn From African Mistakes?, Beverly I. Moran
Homogenized Law: Can The United States Learn From African Mistakes?, Beverly I. Moran
Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications
For the last fifty years we have seen an outflow of United States laws to developing countries. This legal outflow has caused problems of enforcement in societies that do not share the values, needs or concerns of the law producing state. Using law reform in Eritrea as a case study, the article asks what will happen in the United States when we become the recipient, rather than the exporter, of maladapted laws that serve the purpose of others instead of serving the unique needs of the United States and its economy.
Setting An Agenda For A Study Of Tax And Black Culture, Beverly I. Moran
Setting An Agenda For A Study Of Tax And Black Culture, Beverly I. Moran
Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications
At present the Internal Revenue Code unthinkingly reflects many aspects of white culture including historical opportunities that whites have received for wealth building and marriage. In order for the federal tax laws to tax fairly all cultures within the purview of taxation must also find their values reflected. The article sets out how the tax laws might begin to incorporate black culture.
Exploring The Mysteries: Can We Ever Know Anything About Race And Tax?, Beverly I. Moran
Exploring The Mysteries: Can We Ever Know Anything About Race And Tax?, Beverly I. Moran
Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications
The politics behind tax legislation are explored in order to demonstrate that, rather than being surprising or unexpected, it is easily predictable that federal tax laws would favor whites over blacks.
The Elephant And The Four Blind Men: The Burger Court And Its Federal Tax Decisions, Beverly I. Moran, Daniel M. Schneider
The Elephant And The Four Blind Men: The Burger Court And Its Federal Tax Decisions, Beverly I. Moran, Daniel M. Schneider
Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications
All the federal tax decisions of the Burger Court are reviewed in order to demonstrate that widely held beliefs about statutory interpretation in tax cases are misleading. For example, although the literature asserts that courts do not distinguish between legislative and interpretive regulations, the Burger Court did give greater deference to legislative regulations. Further, despite some Justices antipathy to legislative history, the Burger Court relied heavily on legislative histories in making its decisions. In addition, the widely held view that the Court eschews tax controversies was found false when compared to other business areas.
Quantum Leap: A Black Woman Uses Legal Education To Obtain Her Honorary White Pass, Beverly I. Moran
Quantum Leap: A Black Woman Uses Legal Education To Obtain Her Honorary White Pass, Beverly I. Moran
Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications
The nature of privilege is that it is hidden from those who possess it even more than it is hidden from those who lack privilege. Privilege's invisibility to its owner makes privilege difficult to both identify and fight.
Welcome To The Funhouse: The Incredible Maze Of Modern Divorce Taxation, Beverly I. Moran
Welcome To The Funhouse: The Incredible Maze Of Modern Divorce Taxation, Beverly I. Moran
Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications
Using legislative histories the article shows how the incidence of taxation began to fall more heavily on women in the context of divorce as women's social and political status rose during World War II and that this trend continued through several sets of divorce tax reform.